SCAC Tournament

Thoughts: Sorry for the late posting on this. Real-life and all.

I’ll probably just reuse this each week and add to this section when needed (or not needed).

I really struggled watching Southwestern yesterday simple because I’m emotionally invested and was just coming off a day of procedures that left me drained. This match could have gone either way and TLU probably wins this in set 4 (hitting 0.314) if SU didn’t raise their game as well. SU had two very high error sets that accounted for their losses but make no mistake TLU hit better on the day overall. There were three Bulldogs with double-digit kills in Paige Day, Hayden Smyers and Madison Weisinger and the defense was anchored by a really good performance from Lexi Morris. For SU, Lauren Crabtree got another triple-double to tie (I think) Annika Canaba for the national lead. Emma White and Riley Brantley would chip in with double-digit kills, as well. Special note to Jessica Kuras who was 9 for 14 with no errors before leaving with an injury in the third set.

Schreiner was making their first tournament appearance in 8-years but drew Trinity which is never fun. Schreiner’s Kayla Lofland reached 10 kills and was her normal outstanding self. She really had a nice season finishing with 234.5 points (which translates to a 400+ season in normal years). This match was all Trinity in the end who got the sweep behind Avery Tuggle’s 10 kills and team leading 11 digs. Sarah Williammee had 9 kills on 13 attempts with no errors. Nadia Kern would add 5 service aces in this match, as well.

A surprising sweep (to me) for Austin College just because I thought these two teams would play closer. First set did and ended 27-25 but credit to the ‘Roos for taking care of business the rest of the way. St. Thomas did get 11 kills from Alaina Lanik and Kaylyn Latin did a great job in defense with 25 digs. (St. Thomas would have 18 more digs than Austin College in this match.) It was Victoria Smith for Austin College who led the team with 10 kills and Shelbi Cook would go 6 for 12 with no errors in addition to her 4 service aces. Both serving and blocking seemed to be the difference for the ‘Roos in this one (Cook would also have 4 block assists and 1 solo in this one). We’re down to one match left and it will be a big upset if it’s not Colorado College filling the last spot.

Colorado College just took care of business letting Dallas get to 20 points just once in the sweep. Dallas actually played pretty well hitting 0.143 against the top team in the nation and finishing with one fewer hitting error. Ellise Anable had 10 kills for Dallas and Dayjah Whyte had 8 while hitting 0.300. Moriah Delgado kept busy on defense with 19 digs in just 3 sets. Colorado College was just too much in the end as they had three players with double-digit kills (Georgia Mullins , Isabella Vasquez and Allie Freeburg). Setter Isa Aragon-Menzel would end the day with 36 assists and still get in 4 kills of her own on just 7 attacks. The two Tiger teams (CC and Trinity) are still on their collision course for the finals, which will be played at Colorado College. I’ve enjoyed the attendance numbers announced at this tournament matches. In this one it was listed as 1.

I had been waiting on official word, but I’ve had several SU parents tell me that the Trinity/SU match is off. The issue (you can guess) is on the SU side so Trinity will advance to the SCAC Championship. The last time Trinity and Southwestern have not played in a season was in 1990. The regular season matches were cancelled due to Covid protocols. Wishing nothing but the best for those impacted this time around.

Austin College hit negative for the match while Colorado College had only 5 hitting errors total. The end result was an easy sweep for the Tigers. We will now get Trinity and Colorado College playing for the SCAC Championship and most likely the national pseudo-championship. Georgia Mullins had 14 kills with Isabella Vasquez putting down 12 kills in the win.

Congratulations to our SCAC Champion Colorado College! I got to see a bit of this match including the entire set three, which was wonderfully played by both teams (30-28 CC win in that one). Trinity hit 0.233 in that set but CC hit 0.356 after hitting 0.414 in set two. CC averaged 20 Points/Set today and that’s not going to lose many matches and to do that against Trinity is really impressive. They had 4 players with double-digit kills (Mullins, Vasquez, Freeburg and Lipacis). Trinity had just Avery Tuggle reach that threshold which was an issue in the long run. Trinity was blocking really well (Ellis with 7) and the CC service game had 16 errors to keep things close for Trinity but just too much firepower from CC today. Isabelle Aragon-Menzel was the Tournament MVP and she finished with 53 assists on the day with 14 digs, 3 kills and 3 blocks. As for the national championship, if I’m CC, I get a banner made. AVCA #1 Ranked Team 2020-21. Hang it up, they deserved it.